Shervin Hajipour: Iran sentences the author of the anthem of the protests over the death of Mahsa Amini to almost four years in prison

they stayed, The title of a song by Shervin Hajipour, means “because” or “because” in Farsi. The lyrics that this 26-year-old musician, one of the most popular in Iran, wrote, inspired by 31 messages that other Iranians had published on social networks, say: “For dancing in the streets”, “for every time we were afraid to kiss to our lovers”, “for our sisters” and “for women, life and freedom”. That lyric, which reproduces in that last stanza the motto of the protests against the 2022 regime unleashed by the death in police custody of Mahsa Yina Amini, the young woman arrested for wearing her veil incorrectly, has earned the musician a three-year sentence. years and eight months in prison. The sentence was announced this Friday, the same day that 61 million Iranians are called to elect their new Parliament at the polls and the 88 members of the Assembly of Experts, the body in charge of electing the successor of the supreme leader of Iran. Ali Khamenei.

“The accused has been sentenced to three years in prison for propaganda against the system and another eight months in prison for inciting riots in order to threaten the security of the country,” reads the sentence, which the musician has shared in his Instagram account. Hajipour had been arrested in October 2022, just a month after Amini’s death, on September 16, and later released on bail. After his arrest, Iranian authorities forced him to delete the song from his social networks.

They stayed By then it was already the anthem of demonstrations in which the long-incubated anger crystallized, not only of women subjected to misogynistic legislation, but of other Iranians who took to the streets, often chanting the song, to demand freedom. fall of the regime. This outcry lasted five months, finally quelled by a repression in which at least 500 people died, according to human rights NGOs, 22,000 were arrested and at least eight men were hanged.

The repression further alienated the Iranian regime from a part of the population. This unrest is one of the factors that make Iranian rulers fear that many citizens will ignore their leaders’ insistent calls to vote. Participation, which, according to different polls, could range between less than 30% and 41% of the electorate, is the main challenge of elections in which the reformist candidates have been practically entirely disqualified.

“Make our friends happy and disappoint our enemies. Please vote,” declared the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, this Friday, symbolically beginning the election day by casting his vote. Some 60,000 polling stations then opened their doors at eight in the morning (5:30 in Spanish peninsular time). They were supposed to remain open until six in the afternoon, but, late in the day, the authorities announced that this period was extended a few more hours, a measure that seems aimed at promoting this objective of increasing participation that, if it collapsed, would show a serious legitimacy crisis.

Only about thirty of the 15,200 candidates – 1,713 of them women – among whom Iranians can choose for the 290 seats in Parliament can be considered moderate or reformist. The regime’s hardest line also dominates the list of 144 candidates for one of the positions in the Assembly of Experts. These lists with hardly any opponents predict the perpetuation of the the state in which The outgoing Parliament in Iran was dominated by a conservative majority of 232 out of 290 seats.

The Reform Front, which brings together around twenty reformist organizations, has renounced participating in these elections, which it defines as “not free.” Professors, students, politicians and activists, such as the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, have also called for a boycott.

A “national duty”

Fatemeh, a 52-year-old housewife from Tehran, responded this Friday in Tehran to the call of authorities who have defined voting as a “national duty.” “I have done [votar] to demonstrate my support for the Islamic Republic and frustrate the enemies. Our participation shows the world that the system has a lot of public support,” he said at a polling station in the Iranian capital, where a dozen people were waiting to vote.

The capital is one of those cities where it is estimated that the low attendance at schools that the Iranian authorities fear may even be much lower than on a national scale.

“In provinces outside Tehran, where local political agendas are more important than national issues, parliamentary elections fulfill a function similar to that of elections in democracies. The people elect their representatives, despite the fact that the regime disqualifies and prevents many candidates from running for Parliament. In Tehran, however, the majority of voters do not bother to participate due to the general disqualification of reformist candidates and the general anger of the population against the regime,” explains political scientist Ali Alfoneh from the United States by email. Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW).

Ali Reza, a 56-year-old employee of a government company, also voted, but claimed to have done so “against his will.” In companies, especially the Government, they always control who has voted and who has not,” he assured.

Follow all the international information on Facebook y Xor our weekly newsletter.